Page 59 of DFF: Delicate Freakin’ Flower (Family Ties #5)

Gabby

I woke up feeling like I’d been hit by a glitter-covered freight train.

The sunlight bleeding through the hotel curtains was too bright, the air too dry, and my mouth felt like it had been used to sandpaper a fence.

My head pounded with the steady throb of a bass drum someone had set to “punishment mode,” and every limb on my body was heavy, sore, and confused about where it was.

Groaning, I rolled over, hoping to find a cooler part of the sheets or maybe some water.

Instead, I misjudged the edge of the bed entirely and tumbled off with all the grace of a tossed suitcase.

I landed hard on the crumpled fabric of my dress from the night before—still tangled and draped across the carpet like it had tried to make a run for it, too.

As I groaned into it and tried to regain my dignity, I heard a crumpling sound beneath me. Blinking through lashes clumped together with yesterday’s mascara, I reached through the layers of my dress and pulled out a stack of papers.

I shuffled through them, trying to recall anything that might make sense of what had happened. My brain was still swimming in leftover alcohol, and everything felt distant—like trying to piece together a dream through static.

Then I found the envelope.

Big, white, and thick, it didn’t look like the other scraps. With a growing sense of unease, I opened it and pulled out a neatly folded certificate with glossy photo prints tucked underneath.

My vision was still blurry, so I moved it closer until the words finally came into focus about an inch from my nose.

Certificate of Marriage .

I blinked. Well, that didn’t make sense.

I squinted at it again, sure it had to belong to Gladys and Ira. Maybe it got mixed up in all the chaos and accidentally ended up in my dress. It made sense. Sort of.

But then I saw my name and Webb’s name printed clearly on it.

I let out a strangled sound. Not a scream, exactly—more like a dying hyena being choked by a feather boa.

“Webb!”

From the bed behind me, his voice came low, amused, and far too awake.

“I was wondering when you’d find that.”

I twisted around so fast that I nearly toppled again. Webb was sprawled across the bed, shirtless and completely at ease, with that infuriating, lopsided grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“What the hell is this?” I screeched, holding the paper aloft like it might catch fire in my hand.

He yawned and stretched like a cat. “That's our marriage certificate.”

“I thought this was Gladys and Ira’s!”

He shook his head, still grinning. “Nope, that one’s framed in their suite. This one’s ours. You, me, and…well…Elvis.”

“Elvis?” My voice rose another octave.

“You don’t remember?”

I stared at him, horrified.

“You demanded the full Elvis experience,” he explained, clearly enjoying himself. “Wouldn’t stop dancing in the parking lot until they brought him out. You called him ‘The King’ and asked if he’d sing Hound Dog while we said our vows. He did, and you cried.”

I stared at the certificate, then flipped through the stack of photos, my heart pounding.

There I was, in my navy corset dress and smudged eye makeup, holding a plastic bouquet with toilet paper trailing from my hair like a veil.

Webb stood beside me, looking smug and thoroughly amused.

Elvis—complete with a rhinestone jumpsuit, sunglasses, and a wig that was 100% slipping—was mid-hip thrust in at least three of the photos.

“Oh my God,” I whispered. “We didn’t even get married in a cute little chapel. We got married in a drive-thru by an off-brand Elvis impersonator.”

Webb didn’t even try to hold back his laughter. “Come on, it’s cool. We can say The King married us.”

I dragged myself into a seated position and glared at him over the edge of the bed. “You think this is funny?”

He looked at me, really looked at me, and then burst into a fresh round of laughter. “You look like a raccoon that licked a plug socket.”

I picked up the nearest pillow and hurled it at him, missing by a mile. “You’re dead.”

“Technically,” he drawled, grinning as he caught the pillow, “I’m your husband, so if you kill me, you inherit half of this hotel room.”

Despite the throbbing in my head, the sheer absurdity of it all hit me like a wave—and before I could stop it, I started laughing, too.

Of course we'd gotten married by Elvis in Vegas. This was us: ridiculous, spontaneous, completely out of our minds… and somehow, absolutely right.

I rubbed my temples, staring down at the certificate again, and whispered, “God help me…I married my best friend in a rhinestone drive thru.”

I didn’t regret it. Not even a little.

Webb

The thing was—I should’ve seen it coming.

We were walking the Strip with everyone, bouncing from bar to bar like we were still in our twenties, and Gabby was in rare form. Her hair was slightly windblown, herdress swishing around her legs, and her cheeks flushed from dancing and maybe three cocktails too many.

And every time we passed a wedding chapel, she’d point dramatically and yell, “ I do !”

At first, I just laughed, then I started tallying them.

By the fifth “I do,” I nudged her. “You know, if you keep proposing, I’m gonna start charging a ring fee.”

She turned to me, dead serious, and eyes full of glitter and tequila. “You wanna get married?”

I blinked. “Like... now ?”

She nodded. “Yes, let’s do something ridiculous.”

I didn’t even hesitate. “Okay.”

She let out a triumphant whoop, grabbed my hand, and yanked me across the street like a woman on a mission. The rest of the group shouted behind us, half cheering, half confused, but none of them stopped us.

And that’s how we ended up at Temu Elvis’s Chapel O’ Love. No, I’m not kidding. That was the actual name on the sign. There was even a banner that said, "Buy One, Get a Free Keychain!"

Elvis—an aging rocker with a crooked wig, bedazzled jumpsuit, and a surprisingly decent voice—welcomed us like we were his favorite act of the night.

The ceremony was chaos. Gabby kept interrupting to ask if Elvis would sing the vows.

When he refused, she sang them herself, dramatically and off-key.

I couldn’t stop laughing. Meanwhile, everyone we were with stood in a half-circle, swaying and belting out Can’t Help Falling in Love like it was group karaoke night at a county fair.

And when it was over, naturally, we had photos taken.

One of them—the one that kept flashing in my mind—was of Gabby riding piggyback on Elvis, slapping his rhinestone-covered ass while throwing a peace sign, and I was walking behind them like some bewildered flower boy, holding her bouquet.

I loved every damn second of it.

Now, lying on the hotel bed the next morning, wearing the silver band that had been slipped onto my finger during that absurd ceremony, I looked at it with something like awe.

It wasn’t just a Vegas stunt to me. I wanted this.

It was fast and messy and would definitely raise eyebrows, but it felt right.

I figured she’d freak out this morning—I'd expected it, in fact—and was ready to give her space to find her footing. But Gabby never did what anyone expected.

She lay there on the floor now, still tangled in her dress, arms flopped out like she was melting into the carpet.

I leaned over the edge of the bed cautiously. “You okay down there?”

She didn’t move much, just turned her head toward me. “I’ve been hunted, kidnapped, hidden, and now apparently married, all in a really short period.”

My stomach twisted. I didn’t know if this was the start of a breakdown or?—

“But,” she continued, “if all that shitty stuff led to this, to us being married—even if people say it’s too early—I can’t help but be grateful for the shitty parts because they brought me here.”

My chest ached in the best way. “You know everyone was egging us on, right? Ira and Gladys were practically dancing around the chapel. Said they wanted to share their anniversary with us. They stood in front of the door in case either of us got cold feet.”

Her eyes widened, then her whole face broke into a grin. “They did not.”

I nodded. “They did.”

She threw her arms in the air and screamed toward the ceiling, “ I’m married, bitches!”

The walls were thick, but not that thick.

From the room next door, there was a loud bang on the wall, followed by Sasha’s voice yelling back, “ I know. So am I! ”

More laughter filtered through the wall, and then Elijah shouted, “ What the hell was all that banging last night? ”

I didn’t even miss a beat. “It was us.”

There was a silence so thick you could feel the eye contact happening through the walls.

Gabby groaned and buried her face in the rug. “Did you have to tell your brother and my cousin that? Was that really necessary?”

I grinned and shrugged. “They were jumping on the bed with us, remember? When you sang that song from the musical about getting married?”

She sat up, her expression caught somewhere between mortified and amused.

I reached down, took her hand, and pulled her gently back up onto the bed. “Anyway, now we’re gonna make banging noises for a different reason.”

Her arms slid around my neck, and her lips met mine, soft and slow. But just as the kiss started to deepen, she pulled back and scrunched up her nose.

“Okay, wait.” She held up a finger. “I need to brush my teeth first. That can’t have been pleasant, sorry.”

I laughed and flopped back onto the bed, watching as she darted naked into the bathroom, her hair wild and her heart completely mine.

And yeah—this might’ve started as a tequila-fueled detour in Vegas.

But I was pretty damn sure we were headed exactly where we were meant to go.